


take all my money and run

by groundopenwide



Category: Bastille (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dan is not a superhero, M/M, a lot of mentions of death, but like...in a funny way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23930791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groundopenwide/pseuds/groundopenwide
Summary: “Are you trying to die onpurpose?”Charlie blinks and goes a bit pink in the cheeks. He has a small cut on his temple where the feral cat nearly scratched his eye out. “I’m just...very accident prone.”“Uh huh,” Dan says, unconvinced.
Relationships: Charlie Barnes/Dan Smith
Comments: 16
Kudos: 22





	take all my money and run

**Author's Note:**

> a random little thing based on the following prompt: "I saved your life and now you won’t leave me alone and damn you’re annoying but I’ll save you again cause you're my annoyance now."
> 
> title is from "crash my car" by COIN.
> 
> catch me on [tumblr!](http://goodlesson.tumblr.com)

Dan’s having tea with his Nan when the vision happens. He’s so startled he almost drops the fine china cup in his hands (and oh, what a _fit_ Nan would’ve had if he’d broken her china—he’d never get invited round for tea again).

It’s a classic innocent-bystander-gets-caught-in-the-midst-of-a-robbery situation. There’s a young bloke, probably around Dan’s age, handing out fliers in front of a shop on a busy street corner. He doesn’t realize what’s happening until too late, when two men come barreling out of the shop and one of them has a gun, of _course_ he has a gun.

“What—” the bloke starts to say, still holding his fliers.

The robber shoots him straight in the chest.

“More tea?” Dan’s Nan asks.

“Actually, Nan, I’ve got to run.” Dan leans over to plant a kiss on her cheek. “Same time next week?”

He pulls up Google Maps on his way to the Tube station. It tells him that Dick’s Grab ‘n Go is only six stops away. He might actually make this one, which is just grand, since he’s got a maths exam tomorrow morning that he hasn’t yet started revising for, and he’d rather not have a dead bloke on his conscience while he takes the derivatives of exponential equations.

 _dick’s grab n go,_ he texts Kyle, one-handed, as he hangs onto an overhead strap on the Tube (bloody rush hour.)

 _kill ‘em!!_ Kyle texts back. _or save ‘em, i guess. robbery?_

_yeah._

_BORING,_ Kyle says. _you’d think they’d spice it up a little bit. how about some ‘circus elephant eats man’ action? or maybe ‘scorned lover rises from the grave to take revenge on cheating husband?’_

_zombies aren’t real, kyle._

_YOU’RE real_ _._ _who says zombies aren’t too?_

*

Listen: Dan’s not a superhero. 

It’s not like he woke up one day with super strength or x-ray vision or telekinesis. He just has this...thing. He’s always had it. His mum calls it a “gift.” His dad thinks he’s full of shit. His best friend, Kyle, has appointed himself Dan’s sidekick, but all he does is send out tweets that say things like, _Daring Dan back at it again with another save!_

(And honestly, _Daring Dan?_ He couldn’t come up with anything more clever? The name makes Dan sound like the star of a children’s show, one that teaches you how to do your multiplication tables using the number of cats stuck in the neighborhood trees.)

The short of it is this: once per day, Dan gets a vision. A vision of someone who’s going to die.

Sometimes he knows the person, sometimes he doesn’t. It’s always someone who lives in the same city as him, and they always die that same day, sometimes within a few minutes of the vision, other times not for hours. It’s shit, really. He’s given a face, a cause of death, and a fifty kilometer radius, and then the universe basically says, “go fetch!” 

Most of the time, he’s lucky enough to spot a street sign or a landmark, _some_ sort of identifier, and then he makes it there on time, right before the person is about to cross the road in front of a drunk driver or walk beneath some scaffolding that’s about to snap loose overhead. Occasionally, though, he gets stuck in traffic, or he picks the wrong end of 23rd Avenue, and then he makes it there as the person is being wheeled off on a gurney, or worse, just lying there, staring up at him with their dead, dead eyes, going _you didn’t save me. Why didn’t you save me?_

(Dan’s just trying to pass his A Levels. He didn’t ask for this.)

*

Dick’s Grab ‘n Go is an unassuming little place with a faded sign that probably hasn’t been updated in fifteen years. Dan’s got no clue why his mystery about-to-be-dead bloke picked this corner, of all places, to hand out his fliers, but it’s not really Dan’s job to question it, is it? He just has to stop the guy from getting killed. Easy breezy. No problem.

“Hello,” mystery bloke says when Dan approaches, stuffing a flier into his face. His eyes are much greener in person. “Open mic this Saturday, if you—”

“No thank you,” Dan says. He then grabs onto mystery bloke’s arm and starts to drag him around the corner, away from the shop entrance.

“ _Excuse_ me, who are you? This is awfully rude—”

Mystery bloke is small. Like, very small. Dan’s never lifted a weight in his life, but he’s able to pull the guy along without trouble—well, save for the fuss he’s putting up. He keeps wiggling his arm around in Dan’s grasp, trying to break free. You’d think Dan would be used to this by now—stupid, ungrateful people—but things never really get any easier when you’re a teenager trying to keep strangers from dying.

“Just be _quiet,"_ Dan says firmly.

He yanks mystery bloke down to crouch beside him, and just in time, too. When he next peeks around the corner, the two robbers are booking it out of the shop, plastic bags of money in hand as they run right past the spot where mystery bloke was standing only moments ago.

Mystery bloke has gone very, very pale. 

“Was that—did he have—”

“A gun,” Dan says. “Yeah.”

“Did you just—” mystery bloke hesitates. His eyes are wide (and very pretty). “They could’ve shot me.”

“Yeah,” Dan says again.

“You just saved my life. Oh my god, you saved my life.”

“Yeah. You’re welcome. Have a good day, now.”

Dan stands up and dusts off his trousers with his hands. He’s about to take off in the direction of the tube station—his maths book is calling his name—but mystery bloke wants to chat. Of course he does. He materializes at Dan’s side like a vapor, falling into step beside him.

“Wait. Wait just a second. You—you came out of nowhere. Did you _know_ that was going to happen?”

“That would be impossible, wouldn’t it?” Dan says, noncommittal. 

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Mystery bloke waves his fliers around, distraught. “You knew they’d be coming out of the shop. That’s the only explanation. You knew they were going to come out of the shop and— _kill_ me, oh my god, they were going to kill me, I was going to die before I’d ever even _kissed_ someone, can you imagine?”

“A tragedy.”

“Yes, it would have been!” Mystery bloke exclaims. “Are you a superhero? Do you have a superhero name?”

“I’m not a superhero, so no, I don’t have a superhero name.”

“But you have a regular name. What is it? Mine’s Charlie.”

Mystery bloke—Charlie—throws himself right into Dan’s path, forcing him to stop in his tracks. Dan sighs, a big, heaving thing that he hopes translates into _you’re being quite annoying and I’d like to go home now, thank you._

“Dan. My name is Dan.”

“Thank you for saving my life, Dan.”

“No problem. Bye,” Dan says, and then he brushes past Charlie and speedwalks the whole rest of the way to the tube station.

*

**kyle loves cats** |@kylejsimmons ∙ _22m_

another one (doesn’t) bite the dust! Daring Dan courageously pushes man around corner to save him from untimely death!

**dan** | @dansmith86 ∙ _20m_

_Replying to @kylejsimmons_

“courageously”

*

Life goes on. Dan passes his maths exam, saves a middle-aged woman from slipping and cracking her head open on some rocks by the creek, has tea with Nan, stops old Mr. Witherspoon down the block from electrocuting himself with his toaster, has tea with Nan again. Rinse, repeat. 

“You’re the lamest superhero of all time,” Kyle tells him.

“I’m _not_ a superhero,” Dan says.

And of course his brain chooses that exact moment to show him a bloke riding a bike, and then the bloke hits a pothole and goes flying _off_ the bike, headfirst into the pavement, and he’s not wearing a helmet, what sort of _idiot_ doesn’t wear a _helmet—_

“Oh, christ,” Dan says aloud.

“What?” Kyle asks.

“I’ve saved this guy before. Just a few weeks ago.”

“A twist!” Kyle exclaims. “Which one was he?”

“Robbery. The chatty one.”

“Ooh. With the pretty eyes, right?”

Dan absolutely does not turn a startling shade of red in the face at the comment. “I’m going now. Bye.”

“I take it back, you’re not that lame!” Kyle calls after him as he leaves.

This is a tricky one. Dan can’t physically stop a man on a moving bicycle (unless he wants to end up seriously injured on the pavement as well), so he’ll have to station himself somewhere along Charlie’s path of travel, try to get his attention, and hope for the best. He picks a spot a block up from where he’s seen Charlie go somersaulting over his handlebars and waits. 

It takes twenty minutes for Charlie to appear. Dan yells at the top of his lungs, “CHARLIE!”

It has the opposite effect he was hoping for. Charlie startles so hard that he swerves straight into the curb and topples over (though thankfully not headfirst this time).

Dan winces. “Whoops. Sorry.”

Charlie lies there on the ground for a moment. He looks disoriented, but nothing appears to be broken, so Dan will take it. 

“You,” Charlie says. “The superhero.”

“Dan.”

“Dan. You scared me!”

“I saved your life,” Dan corrects him. “Again.”

Charlie slaps a hand over his face and makes a pained noise. He still hasn’t moved, sprawled across the pavement like a starfish with his bike lying on top of him. “Oh my god. Are you serious? I was going to die _again?"_

“You should really wear a helmet.”

“This is so embarrassing.”

“Yeah,” Dan agrees. “Need a hand?”

He helps Charlie (and his bicycle) up, and Charlie just sort of...keeps staring at him once he’s standing again, a bit moon-eyed. He doesn’t let go of Dan’s hand.

“Your eyes are so blue,” he says suddenly.

“Um,” Dan says. “Thank you. You aren’t concussed, are you?”

“I’m not sure. Your hair’s really tall, too.”

“ _Okay,"_ Dan tugs his hand free and runs it self-consciously through said hair. “I’m gonna—yeah, I’m gonna go now. Please try not to die again.”

“No promises,” Charlie says, beaming. His eyes get all crinkly when he smiles. 

Dan is...annoyed. That’s all. Nothing more.

*

The next time it happens, Dan starts to get suspicious.

“Are you trying to die on _purpose?”_

Charlie blinks and goes a bit pink in the cheeks. He has a small cut on his temple where the feral cat nearly scratched his eye out. “I’m just...very accident prone.”

“Uh huh,” Dan says, unconvinced.

*

“I’m going to kill him myself,” Dan tells Kyle, right after he’s had a vision of Charlie getting decapitated (by an exploding lava lamp, of all things, which he was _heating up over the bloody stove)._

“Look on the bright side,” says Kyle. “At least you get to find out where he lives.”

Charlie lives in a humble little brick house on the west side. There’s a tiny flower garden out front and a _BEWARE OF DOG_ sign in the front window. His mum answers the door. 

“Oh, hello,” she says. “Can I help you?”

“My name’s Dan. I’m a mate of Charlie’s?”

Charlie’s mum doesn’t even question it. “Remind him to take Luna for a walk, would you?” she says, ushering him inside. “That boy. He’s the laziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Dan smiles his best mum-winning smile at her, then follows the sounds of a heavy metal song up the stairs. He finds Charlie in the room at the end of the hall, lying in bed on his stomach and staring contemplatively at the lava lamp on his nightstand.

“Don’t even think about it,” Dan tells him.

Charlie jerks in surprise and rolls right off the bed. He hits the floor with a resounding _thump._ The dog curled up on his pillow blinks at the noise but doesn’t move.

“Give a man some warning, would you?” Charlie complains, sitting up and rubbing his elbow.

“You deserved that. _Why_ on _earth_ would you put a lava lamp on the stove?”

“I haven’t!” Charlie protests. “...Not yet, anyway.”

Dan glares at him. “Also, your mum wants you to take Luna for a walk.”

At the sound of its name, the dog jumps down from Charlie’s bed and wanders over to Dan’s side. She pushes her nose against his leg and just...stays like that, not doing anything else. 

“Aw, you met my mum?” Charlie breaks into a smile. “And Luna likes you, too. Things between us are progressing quite well, aren’t they.”

“They are _not,"_ Dan says definitively. Charlie blows him a kiss.

*

Dan’s been to this café plenty of times. He’s perpetually avoided their open mic night, though, because he isn’t about to willingly sit in a tiny room strung up with fairy lights and listen to a series of spoken word poems comparing human genitalia to fruit. 

Until tonight, of course, because Charlie is—oh yeah, Charlie is an _idiot._

“If you wanted to hear me play, you could have just asked, you know,” Charlie says when he spots Dan. He’s holding a guitar and grinning from ear to ear. Dan hates him, hates him, hates him—

“Do _not_ try to crowd surf,” he says. “Please. I’m begging you.”

“I’m a rockstar in the making, Dan. I let the energy of the room take me where I need to go.”

“Please,” Dan says again, his voice thin. 

The vision keeps replaying in his head on some kind of sick loop: Charlie launching himself into the air with no one there to catch him. Charlie’s head hitting the floor with the most sickening _crack._ Blood spilling all over the floor like a can of red paint. As far as deaths go, it’s a pretty normal one. Maybe that’s why Dan wants to cry every time he reimagines it.

“Careful, I’m starting to think you’d miss me if I was gone,” Charlie says.

And Dan just— _snaps._

“What happens if you _aren’t_ in my vision?” he demands. “What happens if, one day, I don’t make it in time and you actually die? What then, huh? That’ll be on my conscience, Charlie!”

Charlie’s smile dims in an instant. He looks proper guilty, eyes downcast. “I’m—I didn’t—”

“This is your life we’re talking about. Are you really that stupid, or do you just _want_ to die? Is that it?”

Charlie is far too quiet for a moment. 

“I mean, only sometimes,” he says.

Dan deflates. “...oh.”

“You won’t let me, though,” Charlie smiles, just a tad. “It’s—kinda nice. That someone cares. Even if you don’t really have a choice in the matter.”

Charlie is an absolute pain in the arse. He’s made Dan late to school on more than one occasion and has Kyle tweeting things like _Daring Dan has his very own damsel!_ But he’s also really cute when he smiles and is practically the perfect height to fit under Dan’s arm and seeing him in whatever capacity (even when he’s about to _die)_ always makes Dan’s heart do this annoying flippy-floppy thing in his chest.

“I’d care,” Dan says. “Even if I didn’t have to. I’d save you every time.”

Charlie blinks at him. Then: “Well, that’s dead romantic, isn’t it?”

Dan huffs an exasperated breath, but can’t tamper the warmth in his cheeks and the little smile that threatens to spread across his face. “Quit it, you’re ruining the moment.”

Charlie grins and shuffles a step closer. He’s still holding his guitar, and it bumps Dan in the stomach when he leans over and kisses him right on the mouth, soft and fleeting. His lips taste like mint toothpaste.

“Are you gonna stay and listen to me play?” Charlie asks afterwards. His face is a bit pink. “I promise not to crowd surf.”

“I’ll catch you if you do.”

“My hero!”

“Not a hero,” Dan reminds him dutifully.


End file.
